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Once more, I have lost count of how many times it's happened, but we're sitting on your bed in silence. My arms and legs are sore. Your eyes are red, you're still crying. ‘But it's alright, it's okay,’ you insisted, ‘I want to make sure you're okay just as much as you want to make sure I am, too.’
“Why does this keep happening?”
I muttered complaints, mostly to myself, but I heard your breathing slow into a sigh. You took in a shaking breath and sat up a little but you didn't turn back to look at me.
“I'm sorry, Shuichi. I'm a horrible friend… Partner, thing. Whatever. I suck.”
I didn't say it in a way that I hoped you would say I wasn't. I said it because I know, and you know. We know it's the reality. You won't say anything, in fact you won't even look at me, but I know what you're thinking.
‘I still love you.’
Long enough time, the ticking of that old grandfather clock rang in my ears. You stopped crying, I think, because you turned around so your back wasn't facing me anymore. You took deep breaths like you were going to speak but you didn't.
“Oma, I love you. Please, please don't do this again. I don't think my heart could take it.”
Your voice broke more with each pause. I could see you tearing up without even looking.
“Kokichi. I love you too, Shuichi.”
Giving no commentary on your pleas for mercy. You looked dissatisfied, even hurt, you swallowed hard.
“Kokichi, help me.”
“Huh?”
You didn't say anything after that. You started crying again, this time full-blown sobbing all folded over. I shimmied closer to you and patted your back, ‘what else? I'll help you if it’s the last thing I do.’
“Shuichi, I don't want to leave.”
“Stay here then.”
You didn't seem to hesitate even a little.
“May I?”
“Just sleep on the couch, I don't care…”
And so I lay on the couch, I reminisce upon the last times this happened. The first time, the second, third, this the fourth. I remember I slept there the night you said ‘I think I'm falling in love with you’, igniting a great unendurable belongingness, like a match in a forest fire. I burned so long and so quiet you must have wondered if I loved you back.
I did, I did, I do.